Rand Paul literally flips off media after debate firestorm

U.S.
Republican presidential candidate and Senator Rand Paul speaks
during the Heritage Action for America presidential candidate
forum in Greenville, South Carolina on September 18,
2015.REUTERS/Chris
Keane

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) delivered a message from his
presidential campaign's supporters to the media on Thursday: A
middle finger.

In an interview with ABC Radio correspondent Aaron Katersky
on Thursday, Paul said his exclusion form Thursday
night's primetime debate had infuriated many of his supporters,
who were calling into his campaign to convey their anger with the
media.

"Ninety-nine percent of our supporters are calling in and saying,
for the media, that's where you can go," Paul said, then throwing
up his middle finger.

The senator failed to place high enough in national or
early-state polls to qualify for the primetime debate, which
is being hosted by the Fox Business Network. He has subsequently
refused to participate in the earlier, lower-tier debate
featuring other lower-polling candidates.

Paul's campaign lobbied Fox Business to allow him on the
main stage, after the results of a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines
Register poll released Wednesday would have helped bump up
his average over the threshold needed to qualify for the
main stage. But the network refused to change its qualification
rules.

The campaign lashed out at Fox Business, and "the media" more
broadly, after it was announced that Paul did not qualify for the
debate.

"[T]he media doesn't care about the truth, they care about their
own agenda. They want to decide the 'tiers' of this race and name
the winners and losers. I will not stand for this,"
Paul wrote in an email to supporters.

The senator said Thursday that his decision to skip the
second-tier debate was strategic in order to avoid looking like a
lesser candidate in the eyes of voters.

"To be artificially designated in some kind of lower or second
tier sends a signal to the voter that you are not the same and
don't have a chance," Paul said.

Paul's campaign does appear to be benefiting from greater media
exposure gained by skipping the debate.

As CNN's Dylan Byers reported Thursday, Paul's
appearance on numerous television shows in New York resulted in
much higher ratings than Paul would have likely garnered if he
appeared in the undercard debate.